Ramblings of an Emergency Physician in Texas

What’s the most productive thing I’ve done at work recently?

My ED is like most others: there’s a plan for where computers go, and they get installed on the desks correctly. Unfortunately, there’s not a plan for all the wires, power strips, etc that are associated with these installations.

The wires, cables, power strips, etc, just wind up on the floor. They collect dust and then the area doesn’t get swept, let alone mopped (we’ve had dust bunny races under the counters). (I don’t blame housekeeping: they don’t want the blame for pulling out any wires, so they avoid them).

After griping about them for a year, and knowing I had a stretch of nights (which occasionally have some slack moments) I finally did something about it: tie-wraps and little sticky wall attachments for same.

Over two nights 90% of the wires came up off the deck, and now these areas are getting swept. I’ve learned some things, like: power strips don’t care how many sticky holders are attached to the wall, they just go to ground. I’m now screwing the sticky feet to the wall, and that’s working. (The other cables are awaiting some computer racks to get their boxes off the floor, then the cables will go up).

I got two amusing comments while doing this: “You’re my dad” from one bemused nurse, and “You know, they pay people to do this” (to which I pointed out that if they did I wouldn’t be doing it).

Eventually the floors will be cleaner, and I finally put my time where my mouth was.

Seriously, you have tackled one of my pet peeves in the hospital. Dust carries fomites, and leaving it all sitting there in hospital rooms tangled in the computer wires can’t be good, can it? Not to mention unsightly.

Where i work, housekeeping is not allowed to go near the computers. Problem is, no one else is given the task of cleaning around them, either. Behind the monitors are dust bunnies that are big enough to eat people. Achoooo!!!